I know a noobie question, but I cut my teeth in Rhino 3d where with NURBS a cirlce is a circle and then rendering engine took care of the mesh details. Working with poly's is requiring a differnt mindset.  from what I have read smoothing averages the angles of two faces, I am thinking  a 180 faced cyclinder would result in an seemenly perfect cylinder. 90 faces would degrade it twice as much and 45 faces four times as much. So 65 faces might be the magic number for decent renders with out noticable faces or edges. Or am I over thinking this?